Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover by Sarah MacLean
She’d known there was a connection, of course, but not what it was. It had never occurred to her that he and the earl might have been so connected for so long.
She watched him carefully, working to keep the shock from her face. Working to keep herself from asking the myriad questions immediately on the tip of her tongue.
“My father died when I was no more than four.” He looked away, into the darkness, and she watched him in profile as he spoke, loving the strength in his face. The emotion there. “And my mother, saddled with a child and no knowledge of how to live on the land, was offered a place in the main house.”
“Tremley’s house,” Georgiana said.
He nodded. “She went from farmer’s wife to washwoman. From sleeping in her own house to sleeping in a room with six other women, her child in her bed.” He looked up at the trees rustling in the spring breeze. “And she never once complained.”
“Of course she didn’t.” Georgiana could not stop herself from speaking. “She did it for you. For you and your sister.”
He ignored the words. Pressed on. “The estate was horrifying. The former earl, if you can imagine it, was worse than the current one. Servants were beaten. Women were assaulted. Children were pressed into service too harsh for their age.” He looked into the darkness. “My mother and I were lucky.”
Georgiana had not even heard the story, and she knew there was nothing lucky about it. She wanted to touch him, to give him comfort, but she knew better. She let him speak. “He took an interest in her.”
She’d known the words were coming, but she hated them all the same.
“He offered her a trade – her body for my safety.” Her brow furrowed at the words, and he noticed. “Or, rather, not my safety. My presence. If she did not give him what he wished, he would send me away. To a workhouse.”
Georgiana thought of her own child, of her own past. Of the threats she’d faced – never so cruel. Never so damning. Even when ruined, she’d still had the luck of the aristocracy. Not so this woman. This boy. “Why?” she asked, “Why torture her?”
He met her gaze. “Power.” He paused and collected his thoughts. Went on. “I was allowed to stay, but made to work – I’ve told you this bit.” She reached for him then, unable to stop herself. Unable to resist comforting the boy he’d once been. He pulled away from her touch. “No. I won’t be able to tell it all if you…” He hesitated, then said, “Once, I resisted the work. He punished her.”
“Duncan,” she whispered.
“I could not stop him.”
She shook her head. “Of course you couldn’t. You were a boy.”
His gaze snapped to hers. “I am not a boy any longer. And I could not stop him from hurting his wife.”
“You cannot compare the two.”
“Of course I can. Charles – the young earl – he was as bad as his father. Worse. He was desperate for approval, and he took pleasure in the power that came with being the future earl. He learned to throw a remarkable punch.” His fingers came to his jaw, as if the words brought back the blows. “He did terrible things to the servants’ children. I stopped him more times than I could count. And then…” He trailed off, lost in thought for a long moment before he looked back to her. “The countess never goes back,” he vowed. “I’ll pay for her to go anywhere in Christendom. Anywhere she chooses.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I mean it,” he said, and she recognized the fury in his gaze.
“I know.”
He took a long breath, released it on a wicked curse. “When I was ten, my mother became pregnant.”
She’d done the math already. She’d known Cynthia was not his full sister. Now, she finished the calculation. Her eyes went wide. It was his turn to nod. “You see how it fits together.”
“Tremley.”
He dipped his head. “She is his half sister.”
“Christ,” she whispered. “Does she know?”
He ignored the question. “The earl pushed my mother to be rid of her, first when she began to increase and then again when Cynthia was born. He threatened to take her away. To give her to some well-meaning family somewhere on the estate. My mother refused to allow it.”
“I am not surprised,” Georgiana said. “No woman would be willing to let you go.”
He looked to her. “I imagine you would have done the same.”
She lifted her chin. “With my dying breath.”
He put his hand to her face, cupping her cheek in its warmth. “Caroline is lucky to have you.”
“I am lucky to have her,” she said. “Just as your mother was lucky to have you both.”
“There should have been three of us,” he said. “The third was stillborn. A brother.”
“Duncan,” she said, putting her hand to his on her cheek, her eyes filling with tears for him. For what he had seen.
“I was fifteen. Cynthia was five.” He paused. “And my mother… she died as well.”
She’d known it was coming, but the words still tore at her.
“He killed my mother,” he said.
She nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks for the loss of the woman she would never know. For the loss of the boy she would never know. For Duncan. She filled in the rest. “You ran.”
“I stole a horse.” A grey stallion. “It was worth five times what I was worth. More.”
It was worth nothing compared to him. “And you took Cynthia.”
“Kidnapped her. If the earl ever wanted her… if he ever found us… I would hang.” He looked toward the ballroom. “But what could I do? How could I leave her?”
“You couldn’t,” she said. “You did the right thing. Where did you go?”
“We were lucky… we found an innkeeper and his wife. They took us in, fed us. Helped us. Never once asked about the horse. He had a brother in London who owned a pub. We went to him. I sold the horse, planning to pay the pub owner to take care of Cynthia while I enlisted in the army.” He stopped. “I would never have seen her again.”
There was fear in the words, as he was lost to their memory. She spoke. “But you did. You see her every day.”
He returned to the present. “The night I returned, money in my pocket, ready to change our lives, there was a man in the pub. He owned a newspaper. Offered me a job running ink and paper at the press.”
“And so you became Duncan West, newspaperman.”
He smiled. “A few steps in between – a careful investment in a new printing press – the retirement of a man who saw something in me that I did not know was there – but, yes. I started The Scandal Sheet —”
“My favorite publication.”
He had the grace to look chagrined. “I apologized for the cartoon.”
“I was happy that you felt you owed me a penance.”
The laughter in his eyes disappeared at the reminder of their deal – of his promise to help her marry. She hated herself for bringing it up.
“Once I was Duncan West” – he looked back to the ball – “I suppose I should have expected Tremley to find me once he inherited the title and took his place in Parliament. But once he did, he owned me.”
She understood, immediately. “He holds your secrets. And they are more valuable to him in private, where he can use you for news, than in public, where you end up in prison.”
“Horse stealing is a hanging offense,” he reminded her, all macabre. “As is fraud.”
Her brow knit. “Fraud.”
“Duncan West does not exist.” He looked down at his feet, and she saw a glimpse of the bruised boy he’d once been. “There was another boy who saw us leaving,” he said, the words soft and full of memory. “He tried to follow.
“But he was younger, and he wasn’t strong enough, and I already had Cynthia. I made him take his own horse.” Dread pooled in Georgiana’s stomach. “It was dark, and his horse balked at a jump. He was thrown. Died.” He shook his head. “I left him. I got him killed, and I left him.”
Sh
He still did not look at her. “His name was Duncan.”
She closed her eyes at the words. At the trust he must have for her in order to confess it.
A trust she had not shown him.
“What was yours?”
“James,” he said. “Jamie. Croft.”
She pulled his face down to hers, letting their foreheads touch. “Jamie,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “Gone now. Forever.”
That word, promise and weapon at once.
“And Cynthia?” she asked.
A cloud crossed over his face. “Cynthia does not remember anything before the innkeeper and his wife. She doesn’t remember our mother. She thinks we shared a father. Thinks his name was West.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want her to know the truth.”
“That her father was a monster? Of course you didn’t.”
He met her eyes. “I took her from that life. She had no choice.”
“You did what was best.”
“She is half aristocrat.”
“And all West.” She refused to let him be ashamed of it. “You chose that for yourself?”
“I chose it for her,” he said, and she understood that more than he could ever know. “When we left Tremley Manor, it was dusk. We rode toward the sunset.”
“West.”
She lifted herself onto her toes and kissed him, long and slow and deep, as though they had all the time in the world. As though their secrets weren’t thundering toward them at breakneck speed.
His hands were at her jaw, cradling her with such care, that she thought she might weep – if she did not want him so very much. She sighed into his mouth as he kissed her again and again, pulling her tight against him, fitting them together in a way that made her wish they were somewhere else. Somewhere indoors. Somewhere with a bed.
He pulled back finally, and said, “So, you see, I keep Tremley’s secrets for Cynthia. But now that they are with Chase…”
Of course, now that Chase knew Tremley’s secrets, Duncan and Cynthia were under threat. And there it was, the reason he had pressed her for Chase’s identity. The reason he had threatened her.
And now Georgiana knew Duncan’s secrets, she would do anything to protect them. To protect him.
Tremley had asked her to choose – Chase or West. And there was no question anymore.
She might not be able to have him with her forever, but she could ensure that his forever was happy, and long, and without fear.
He was so noble. There was so much about this man that she adored. He was deeply, undeniably worthy of this world. Of life. Of love. She came up on her toes and pressed her forehead to his. “What if we married?”
It was not meant in seriousness. It was a strange dream in this quiet moment. And still, he felt he should answer her honestly. He shook his head. “I cannot marry you.”
The words shocked her. “What?”
He saw immediately what he had done. “I cannot – I would never saddle you with my secrets. If my past were revealed, my wife would be destroyed. My family. I would absolutely go to prison. And I would likely hang. And you would suffer with me. And Caroline.”
“If we keep Tremley quiet.”
He shook his head. “As long as Tremley lives, my secrets live with him.” He paused. “And besides, I can’t give you the title.”
“Hang the title.”
He smiled, and there was sadness in the expression. “You don’t mean it.”
She didn’t. This whole life – everything she had ever done for the last decade – had been for Caroline.
“I wish…”
She trailed off as his arms came around her. “Tell me.”
“I wish we were other people,” she said, quietly. “I wish we were simple, and all we cared about was food on our table and roofs over our heads.”
“And love,” he added.
She did not hesitate. “And love,” she agreed.
“If we were other people,” he asked, “would you marry me?”
It was her turn to look to the sky, to imagine that instead of here – in Mayfair, by the light of a glittering ballroom, wearing a gown worth more than most people made in a year – she was in the country, children pulling on her apron strings as she pointed out the constellations.
And how magnificent that would be. “I would.”
“If we were other people,” he said, pleasure in his tone as his fingers stroked over her face, “I would ask you.”
She nodded. “But we aren’t.”
“Shh,” he hushed her. “Don’t take it away. Not yet.” He turned her in the darkness, until her face was in the light. “Tell me.”
She shook her head, sadness coming quickly, on a wave of tears. “I shouldn’t,” she said. “It is not a good idea.”
“I have made a life on bad ideas,” he said. “Tell me.” He kissed her, quick and lovely. “Tell me you love me.”
The tears spilled over, but she could not look away from him. She could not tell him that she loved him, because she might not be able to walk away from him then. And if she could not walk away from him, all of this – this entire mess into which she had dragged him – would be for naught.
“Tell me, Georgiana,” he whispered, sipping the tears from her cheeks. “Do you love me?”
If she told him she loved him, she knew without question that he would never allow her to do what must be done.
And so, instead of answering his question, she answered Tremley’s question from the night before. She reached up, slid her fingers into her love’s hair, and pulled him down to her, grazing her lips against his once, twice, before saying, “I choose you. Always.”
She chose West. Here and now.
He kissed her, deep and long and wonderful, rewarding the words even though they weren’t precisely what he wished for. When he pulled back, he said, “I choose you as well, my lady. Forever.”
She adored this man, in all the dark corners that she’d thought she’d locked away forever.
Forever.
It was a long time… and belonged to him.
She would give it to him. “I can repair this,” she said.
He grew curious. “Repair what?”
He began to walk again, edging them through the garden gate to the mews at the side of the massive house, where a crush of carriages waited for their owners to call for them.
“All of it,” she said, her fingers trailing over the great black wheels of a coach, then along the silky flank of one of its horses. “I can convince Tremley never to betray your information.”
“How?”
“With Chase.” For the first time since they had met as Georgiana and West, she did not feel guilty referring to Chase as other. Not now, not as she was willing to sacrifice the false identity to save Duncan.
He stopped, turned to her. “I don’t want you anywhere near this, Georgiana. Isn’t it time you leave him? Isn’t it time you begin your life without him?”
She shook her head. “Duncan, you don’t understand —”
He took her arms in his grip. “No, you don’t understand. I’ve taken care of it.”
Everything inside her stilled. “What do you mean?” Was he planning to confess? “Duncan, you must not —”
“I have taken care of it,” he repeated. “But listen to me. Chase is dangerous. He has the power to bring us all down if he wishes. This entire mess exists because Tremley does not trust Chase not to release the information on his treason.
“I don’t know what it is that keeps you so beholden to him – I swore I would not ask ever again. But I do know that it is time for you to sever whatever ties you have to this massive, mythical man.” His words grew more impassioned and his anger began to show. “It is time for you to leave him. To leave that place. To end this part of your life.”
“I know.”
His hands cradled her face once more, tilting her up to meet his. “Chris
She was doing it for him. “I will.”
“Do this one thing for me,” he begged. “End it with him… whatever it is. Stay away from the club.”
“I will.” Two more days, and she would never look back at it.
“Do this, and I will never ask you for another thing again.”
She wanted him to ask. She wanted to be his partner in this. His Amphitrite. “Duncan…” she trailed off, not knowing what to say. Hating fate and fortune, and wishing she were someone, anyone else. Wishing she were a woman who could fall into Duncan West’s arms and spend the rest of her life there.
“Promise me,” he whispered, his lips on hers, neither of them caring that they were in full view of half of London’s coachmen. “Promise me you won’t let him win in this.”
She returned the kiss. “I promise.” It was the closest that she would ever come to telling him she loved him. “I promise,” she repeated, and it was truth. Chase would not win this.
They walked to the next carriage in the line, and he opened the door. She peered in. There were newspapers scattered across the floor. Her heart began to pound. It was his carriage. Was he taking her to his home? Abducting her away from this place? From all the things that kept them chained to this world?
He handed her up into the carriage. “And promise me something else…”
“Anything.”
The wide world.
His hand slid down her leg, sliding under the skirts of her dress, his fingers caressing the skin of her ankle.
“Stay out of the club tomorrow.”
He closed the door and banged on the side of the carriage, signaling to the driver. “Take the lady to Leighton House,” she heard him say as the conveyance lurched into motion. She instantly understood what had happened – he didn’t want her sleeping at the club, so he was sending her to her brother’s house in his own carriage.
She should have been annoyed, but she could not quite muster the energy. She was using too much of it to love him.
She settled back into the soft seat of his carriage, considering all the things she had to do prior to her deadline with Tremley tomorrow – most importantly, telling the other partners that Chase was about to be revealed.